Last Saturday, Sir Winston Churchill was swarmed by a group of suit wearing, briefcase touting, dictionary carrying teens ready to do battle over the contention: This House believes that Churchill’s objections to Indian independence were warrented. This tournament, sponsored by the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Calgary, was one of the many debate tournaments that occur throughout the year in Calgary. Generally, Churchill is known for its academic topics that push the debators to do a plethora of research.
What is debate?
For those who have not participated in debate, I will provide a quick summary of what exactly constitutes a debate. There are two sides, one arguing for the contention, or the proposition, and one arguing against the contention, or the opposition. Both sides are represented by teams of two people, each speak for six to eight minutes, depending on the level of the debate. There are judges who decide, at the end of each debate, which side has the more persuasive argument. Generally, tournaments are composed of three rounds, and each team will debate both sides of the contention at least once. At the end of the day, a winning team will be crowned.
What about the topic?
This year’s topic was quite interesting. It was an extremely research intensive topic, and opened the door to a lot of different logic paths taken by each team. There were teams that presented a statistics based arguement that compared statistics like GDP, infant mortality rate, average lifespan etc, before and after Indian independence. Others presented a moral arguement, arguing about the morality of the right to self-determination from 1917 to 1949. In all, there wasn’t the trend of stagnation that marks so many debates with both sides essentially knowing the arguements that the other side will present.
What about the debate?
Many schools sent their delegations, including Webber Academy, Western Canada High School, William Aberhart High School and Sir Winston Churchill High School. There were over 47 teams that partipated in the tournament, and over 250 judges and volunteers. Churchill, the host school provided over 100 volunteers as chairpeople and timekeepers. There was a great showing by the school cafeteria in providing great wraps for hungry debators. The coffee and cookies also were excellent.
The debate rounds were executed without a hitch, all the rooms were full and there weren’t any issues throughout the debate. I personally received feedback that said the organization of the debate was exemplary. There was only a small issue with the statistics that delayed the showround between the first and second teams by about half an hour. After the statistic issue was sorted out, the final round began. It was… amazing. I’ve been involved in debate for about five years, and I’m proud to say that side Proposition did one of the best debates that I have heard so far. It was enjoyed by the many volunteers, parents and debators that stayed to witness the debate-off.
Overall, great academic debates were enjoyed by all who came, huge thanks goes out to all the debators that attended, all the judges that gave up their Saturday, all the volunteers who woke up so early on a Saturday to come and support the event. Vasanth and Shahriar from Sir Winston Churchill won the first place medal for senior, statistics are still being compiled so the winners from the begineer category have not been announced yet.